09/11/2018

On Written Law and the Rise of the Caliphate according to Al-Farabi

82. If there happens to be an association of these kings at a single moment in a single city, a single nation, or many nations, then their whole association is like a single king due to the agreement in their endeavors, purposes, opinions, and ways of life. If they succeed one another in time, their souls will be as a single soul. The second will proceed according to the way of life of the first, and the one now present according to the way of life of the one who has passed away. Just as it is permissible for one of them to change a Law he legislated at one moment if he is of the opinion that it is more fitting to change it at another moment, so may the one now present who succeeds the one who has passed away change what the one who has passed away has already legislated. For the one who has passed away would change [it] himself, were he to observe the [new] condition. When there does not happen to be a human being of this condition, the Laws that the former [kings] prescribed or ordained are to be adopted, then written down and preserved, and the city is to be governed by means of them. So the ruler who governs the city by means of written Laws adopted from past leaders is the king of traditional law.--Al-Farabi, Political Regime, Translated by Charles Butterfield

In context it is clear that "these kings' are akin to Platonic philosopher-kings ("king in truth according to the ancients," (80)). The most visible difference is that for Al-Farabi, but not Plato, a philosopher-king can rule over an empire ("many nations") whereas Plato limits their rule to an explicitly delimited city-state/polity [Republic, 423b]. Another important difference -- not evident from this quote, but crucial -- is that in the Republic, Socrates farms out to the oracle of Apollo the fundamental laws pertaining to the divine (427),* so that the philosopher-kings of the Republic , which then inherit the oracle's injunctions, are more akin to an executive of earthy matters than a constitutional-onto-theological-legislator. Al-Farabi stresses this difference when he points out that rather than calling one of them a philosopher king, it's better "of whom it ought to be said that he receives revelation." (80)

A reader familiar with early Islamic history, is likely to read in this passage, the era of Muhammad and (at least) the four righteous caliphs, which came to an end . Unlike, say, Ibn Rushd later (recall here), he treats the period of the four righteous caliphs not as an imitation of the virtue of Muhammed, but as a continuation of the best kind of polity founded by Muhammad.+ For the sake of argument, I call this a continuity thesis. The continuity comes to an end, when under the Umayyad dynasty caliphs onward, judges and jurists are appointed who rely on and interpret written law.

This continuity thesis has an interesting implication: that the according to the four righteous caliphs contextually necessitated changes away from Muhammad's practice and example are not really changes, as it were, of the inner meaning of the law. It's only when Caliphs started to rely on written law that the polity becomes, at best, an imitation of virtue. This second-best structure is due to the lack of talent at the top.

Be that as it may, while it is tempting to see in Al-Farabi's position an echo of Socrates' bias against writing. It is important to recognize that for Al-Farabi this is merely a symptom; what he calls rule by "traditional law" is a consequence of a lack of available ruling talent or at least a mechanism by which it can come to rule.

We moderns are inclined to reflect on the selection mechanism or process of the right ruler. But that's not how Al-Farabi sees it. We can put the significance of his point as follows: if you can't govern by personal authority you must rely on written law; this reflects a lack of prudential wisdom.

*I am avoiding the use of 'religion,' because that has a distinctive meaning in Al-Farabi.

+There is an interesting question about traditional Islamic theology lurking here--does it allow for the posthumous souls of the righteous caliphs to have the same rank as the Prophet?